Today was a good good day. We had a p-day with Elle!! We drove around MDI (Mountain Desert Island) and then went to Jordan Pond house. Oh man it was just so so good. We had pop-over sundaes. I just love hanging out with Elle on P-days!!,
I got to go on exchange to Old Town/Bangor with Sister Innes! She is from Thatcher, Arizona and let me tell you... She is an absolutely amazing missionary. We were able to go down to Bangor with one of their potential investigators, Holly and her really good friend, Naomi. Holly is a very very incredibly religious person. The reason why we went down to Bangor was because that is where the Family History Center is. It was such a good experience. Afterwards we took them on a tour of the church and the Spirit was so incredibly strong. Especially when we took them into the chapel. Oh. It was phenomenal. We stood in the chapel and Sister Innes and I just were so filled with the Spirit and we stood there an bore testimony of the Savior and everyone involved was touched in such a personal way. We were all a little bit weepy.
This week, Sister Jensen and I felt that we needed to weekly plan at the church, which is conveniently only about 5 minutes away! That's new! Anyhow, we decided to do that. After about 2 hours of planning both Sister Jensen me I were having a hard time focusing, so we decided to take a quick 1 minute break. And what does Sister Jensen decide to do? Play tag. So we ran out the door and played tag for about 2 minutes and we were just laughing and laughing. Good times, my friends, good times.
Sunday, I guess, yesterday was a absolutely amazing day. The two talks were by two of my absolute favorite people: Morgan and Whitney. Both of these women are the most dedicated people to missionary work that I know. Morgan will, at the drop of a hat, come to our aid to come to a lesson with us. She will put her three kids in the car, which includes a new born, and come and bear beautiful testimony. Whitney is willing to drive us to the very edge of our area, the places where we usually can't go due to miles. Oh man. They are just absolutely amazing people. Anyways, Morgan talked on faith. She is an artist and so she said in her talk that it is very difficult for her to understand faith because it is not a visual thing. So she broke it down into simple steps:
1. Be humble
2. Have a desire to believe
3. Search for truth
4. Choose to believe that truth
5. Act on that belief
This was her way of showing how we can, non members and members alike grow faith. This, to me, was the pathway to conversion. As we act on the belief that we have found, we will be able to return back to our Heavenly Father.
Whitney spoke on missionary work. She bore a powerful testimony of why we do missionary work. She basically said that if we truly have charity for others, the desire to share the gospel will flow naturally out of us. It was fantastic.
We also had zone conference down in Augusta area on Thursday! And guess who I got to see?? SISTER DUNCAN!!! Oh, we had a grand ol' time. Laughing up a storm, I tell you. We had a blast. Also, it was incredibly, spiritually enlightening. One of the things we did was Book of Mormon trailers. It was the same idea of the skits we do at girls camp: get a prop, have a story we were supposed to emulate and have about 20 minutes to prepare. All of them were absolutely hilarious. We were dying laughing. I looked over at President Stoker during one of them and he was in tears laughing. After all of them, Sister Stoker got up and bore testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Afterwards, we drove the two hours home and let me tell you, I. Was. Exhausted.
Oh my heavens! I almost forgot! We also got these things called tiwis! They are a way to keep us safe and the Missionary Department of the church calls it "The Missionary Accountability Program". They are actually cool little devices! So when I get into the car, I am supposed to swoop my card over it and it logs me in. Then, as I am driving, if I speed, it will notify me. If I drive aggressively, it will notify me. And at the end of the transfer I get a "report", either green, yellow or, red. You want to be green. I have only had a couple of notifications so we will see how long I go without getting one!
I wanted to share with you all something that I learned yesterday. The principle I learned of was pride. Here is what I basically learned: there is a huge difference between being prideful and feeling confident with who you are. President Benson teaches that the defining characteristic of pride is enmity. On the other hand, feeling confident with oneself is the exact opposite. We are filled with charity. It is okay to know that you do stuff well, but it is what you do with that (knowledge) is what matters. We are to filled with charity and when we realize that we have an admirable quality, instead of puffing out our chests, we can ask ourselves how we can utilize this skill the benefit others. Christ always was always turning outward. He knew what He did well and instead of being prideful, He utilized it for the benefit of others.
I love this work and I love being a missionary!
Love,
Sister Sewell
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